What's it all about?

40 nights for the orphans of India. My 'Lent in a Tent' is about raising hugely needed funds for 'Shining Faces in India' orphanage in Salem, Tamil Nadhu, by sleeping ouside the Chaplaincy at King's Bruton for 40 nights. My target is at least £10,000 - which amazingly is only enough to feed the hundreds of children there for about two months.I hope that many might be inspired to trade 40 pounds for my 40 nights. Actually, in the back of my mind I'm convinced that we could smash through the target and go much much further ... I wonder.

Monday, 11 February 2013

A second leaving .... 5/40.

Night 5 done and the tent's damp inside. With so much rain there just isn't any time each day for it to dry and condensation to clear. The result? Drips in the night!! I'm sure some of you seasoned campers out there have a cure for the drips; maybe comment a solution at the end of the post?

Anyway, I've called this one 'a second leaving' because not only has the school left, but now my family has too! They've headed off to Cornwal for a few days but my 40 days must go on. To be honest, even as a pretty self-motivating kind of guy I find it hard to keep chirpy without others around when the finishing tape is such a long way off. But then I remember the little ones who it's all for, like this one, and stop grumbling.

I hadn't met her before my visit in January - I think she was new to the orphanage. By now I expect her skin will have cleared up under the care of the super nurse at the orphanage clinic. She's a walking colour palette in her bright clothes and plastic jewellery, but that's fine, she blends in with the palette all around her ...

Colour colour everywhere! That's India.

Just checked how the donations are going and we're a shade under £600 including Gift Aid. That's about 6% of the £10,000 target after 12% of time in the tent. I'm not worried because things are just getting going, but anything you readers can do to spread the word and encourage a generous response would be brilliant - Facebook, Tweets, emails, or just good old fashioned real-word-of-real-mouth ...